As I reflect back on my two week
summer break I can see things a little clearer.
Firstly, I had been limping along
toward that break for quite some time. I’d experienced some fresh issues of loss, which
had triggered other losses, both of which required my attention. Neither of which got it. Instead, I had fallen in to the trap of
pushing it to one side to join my pile of ‘stuff’ to be dealt with at some
unallocated futuristic date.
Mistake.
Consequently, my failure to turn
around and face those losses square on resulted in them doing the jack in the
box thing. I noticed them, I felt them,
I used much energy to shove them back down and keep going with all the things
that had to be done. But not only did they not go away, they continued to pop
back up, lingering in the background as a subtle underlying presence throughout.
And so, when I finally arrived at the much longed for break that I was so desperate for, instead of being greeted with a big fat joy filled holiday high, there was my unprocessed grief.
The very same grief that I had
deluded myself in to thinking I could simply skip over without
consequence.
Even though I know this stuff!
I didn’t recognise it at the time though.
I wondered why I was feeling rubbish
when the sun was shining, the sea was shimmering and all responsibilities were
well out of sight. I felt like my soul
was out of sync with my surroundings.
As I was feeling a way that I didn’t
want to feel, I tried hard not to feel the way that I didn’t want to feel.
And ended up feeling it even more!
Subsequently, I sought out some
quieter spots from which to simply stare out to the great blue sea. It was hard
to spot where the great expanse of sea ended and the sky began. But I found this sea/sky gazing super soothing.
As was the luxury of time to read the
book that I never made it to book club to read or discuss. What an inspiring, amusing and overall
uplifting book to indulge in.
I was also able to take immense
pleasure from indulging in the most enormous cream tea I have ever laid my eyes
let alone my chops on. I was most
disheartened to be unable to manage all the cream. Obviously I wasn’t 100%.
The mornings saw me resisting the
call of the beach for running. Instead I
chose to linger in bed for as long as I could without missing breakfast. I equally
relished the chance to get back in to bed early each night too. A treat indeed.
I took leisurely daily walks to the
neighbouring beaches complete with drink and newspaper reading breaks en route.
As I reflect back on my experience, I
can see that in the run up to the break I had dismissed my feelings for tiredness
and in need of a break-ness. But of
course, this assessment of the situation fell flat on its face when the break
arrived and this limping feeling sharpened rather than dissipated.
And that is the down side of the
increased phases where grief is not so present.
I forget what it feels like. Just
like when a physical problem arises then when it’s healed you forget all about
it. I had enjoyed long enough without
the grief to forget what it felt like. I had been too busy enjoying life to
even want to spot the grief returning. Again.
Plus, after several months of feeling
content, to suddenly feel that creeping sadness, felt worse than when the
sadness was a regular feature.
I hate grief.
Or rather, I hate that when I fail to
recognise and respond to it, I begin to lose my joy.
I especially hate being on holiday
minus my joy. And this holiday most
definitely did not qualify for my most light hearted or jovial of coastal
retreats!
Yet as I reflect, I realise that
whilst I was disappointed to be accompanied by my grief on holiday, it also
forced me to slow down and have the break that I needed if not the break that I
wanted.
Post holiday as I acknowledged the
grip of my grief, I was able to speak to those that I needed to help me to bear
it.
Following a week that provided a banquet
of friendship and nourishment that went far beyond my body and supported me to release
the backlog of unshed tears, I gradually began to recover my mojo.
Halleluyah!
It seems so clear to me now that every
time I try to ignore my grief, I succeed only in prolonging my suffering, delaying
my healing and interrupting the flow of joy.
Maybe next time I’ll deal with my sorrows
as they arise rather than postpone them until the holidays!
This week has seen me enjoying a bit of
space to simply be, in between the usual commitments.
What a treat.
It has enabled me to do a little processing
of recent events such as the sudden death of a young woman. This has also tapped in to the death of my spiritual
mother.
I was aided in my ability to engage on
a heart level with these deaths via a book a friend lent me. It is called Love, Interrupted, by Simon Thomas.
It is an incredibly honest account of Simon’s
experience of losing his wife, the mother of his child, within the space of three
days. It is quite simply, heart rending.
It serves as a painful reminder of how
utterly cruel life sometimes is as well as illustrating the subsequent suffering
that such heartache inflicts upon those experiencing it. Not just the death but
all the losses that ripple out afterwards; the loss of how it was, the loss of no
longer being like others or having what others have. It is almost a series of mini
deaths of life as it was known, that follow the initial death.
And, due to the lack of honest conversation around the reality of death or loss, those losses that follow often go unnoticed. At least they do by those not experiencing them. This can really add pain to a process that can already feel unbearable.
I haven’t quite finished reading this
book yet and part of me doesn’t want to. Ironically I’m avoiding it ending! I just
find it so refreshing and reassuring to read of someone being so honest about the
harsh reality of death, the losses that follow and the messy impact it has upon
the human heart.
It is rare for someone to resist the urge
to down play such a process for fear of whether others can handle it. But I have only the utmost respect for the writer’s
courage in sharing this deeply painful, isolating, lonely, angry, messy experience
whilst also managing to find moments of utter beauty and joy as him and his son
continue to create new ways of living alongside the ongoing loss.
For anyone wanting a better understanding
of how grief can be, I would totally recommend this book.
Death and loss are of course an unavoidable
part of life.
As much as we don’t like to talk about
it, death will come to us all and none amongst us know when.
And whilst death is the most obvious form of loss, it is most certainly not the only form. Loss comes in many guises, lots of which are not visible or acknowledged. Loss may come via the ending or death of a certain situation being what it once was whether a career, health, relationship or anything else. It may also be present via the loss of something that has not happened or been the way we have wanted or anticipated.
Loss infiltrates our lives subtly by continuously.
Things change, situations change, we change.
Death happens.
Life happens.
Change is unavoidable.
And loss runs throughout these realities.
I was reflecting upon these themes during
my precious free moments this week. Loss
and death are such inevitable and yet painful aspects of our experience of being
human.
And yet, all around us, new beginnings
and life are equally at work. They don’t cancel one another out or render each other
any less meaningful or painful, they simply co-exist.
It has given me great pleasure this week to see the new buds of life that continue to appear in my garden at the moment, from roses to sweetpea’s to clematis. They symbolise such hope. For whilst parts of life are constantly ending and changing, my garden reminds me that new parts continue to emerge and develop.
I love this.
Well, I love the new growth more than
I love the old endings and loss! But I do love the way both make up the whole picture.
It is not always easy when there is a
loss of the way things were but the more we allow ourselves to engage with the emotional
reality of this, the more we become able to notice and embrace the new life that
begins to peak through.
I’ve experienced clear moments of the
spark of life and joy erupting back through me this week following the stunned haze
left by the recent death.
Following my fun fuelled holiday
extravaganza, I crash landed back to reality.
I eased myself back in to my
responsibilities over a luscious lunch in a coffee shop where I caught up with
my email and voicemails.
What I could not have anticipated was
a message informing me that an individual I had worked with for six years, had
died three days after their ending session. They were 30.
I could not comprehend it.
I listened to the message three times
before promptly bursting in to stunned tears.
How could it be?
I was utterly shocked and saddened.
Initially I thought I would hold my
practice as planned for two hours that afternoon and then allow myself to
absorb this news. But I quickly realised that was ridiculous and most certainly
not practising what I preach.
I cancelled my practice.
And I called the one who had left me
the message. The person in question had awoken one morning in pain and died
within the hour. The funeral service was being held the next day.
I couldn’t contain my sadness and my
stomach immediately began having pains, partially from the big lunch I’d just
had and partially from the shock and emotion of this news. My body was struggling to digest everything on
every level.
I cried out to God, ‘How could you
allow it?’.
I just felt overwhelmingly saddened
by the unlived life I had imagined they were being launched in to living as
they left my practice that last time.
Some people really commit to doing
the work and this was one of them.
Subsequently they experienced the benefits and left the process in a very
different place to where they started it.
And they had their whole life ahead of them.
Or so I had assumed.
My strongest defences; reason and
rationale immediately did what they do.
They reminded me that I know that life can be cruel and unfair and that
it is all too often the real givers of this life that get taken early or unexpectedly. They added that none of us are entitled to a
certain amount of life as much as we like to imagine we are. Every minute of every day is a gift we cannot
take for granted.
In short my defences attempted to
divert me from the emotion.
The shock.
The pain.
The disbelief.
The sorrow.
The whole, but how can it be? I only
saw them a few short weeks ago; smiling and being who they were.
How could they no longer be here?
How could their life with so much ahead be wiped out in an instant?
Whilst my head knew there was no
explanation, no reason, no sense to be made of the situation, my heart still
sought it.
As I spoke to my best friend who I
trained with, she asked me, ‘Jo, are you angry with God?’. I said quite possibly, but I couldn’t access
it if so.
Later that evening as I drove to meet
another friend, I discovered that yes, I was actually very angry indeed. I was angry at the injustice, the cruelty,
the loss, the senselessness.
I realise God doesn’t have to justify
Himself to any of us but at that moment, I felt angry about that. I wanted to understand something that quite
simply cannot be understood. It can only be grieved. And I wasn’t about to deny or suppress the
anger aspect of my grief.
The service was the next day less
than twenty four hours after I heard.
The tears came as soon as I saw the
hearse and they didn’t stop coming throughout the service. I hid away at the back.
It was beautiful and full of
humour. It reflected the character of
the one whose life it celebrated. But it was of course desperately sad too.
Such an enormous gap would be left for so many people. I couldn’t begin to imagine their loss.
There was a wonderful line read out
at one point which jumped out at me. It was a reminder that when grief comes,
not to ever push the feelings down or away but allow them to come and to go as
they need to. I loved the simple truth and
wisdom of these words. For we must indeed
learn to welcome our sadness as we welcome our happiness, for each are fleeting
emotions worthy of our acknowledgement and compassion.
Anyway, nearly two weeks later I am
still struggling to get my head let alone my heart around this.
My stomach continues to play up,
reminding me that I am not leaving enough space to digest or process anything. After this weekend, I’ll be in a position to
have more space and I’m looking forward to that.
Death is such a painful reminder of
the fragility of life. None of us know how long we have. Any of us can be taken
in an instant.
The challenge to balance living life
to the full, with a refusal to ignore the painful aspects of grief, remains
sharper than ever.
I’ve stopped asking God why and
started asking Him where He is in this. I still don’t understand and I never
will. But I see His hand right from the
moment I heard the message. I could see two friends in the coffee shop who I
had intended to speak to after finishing my messages. I could speak, cry and have
a hug with them before leaving. I saw Him in the subsequent phone calls and
meetings with friends.
He was there when the person unhesitatingly
responded, ‘I’ll be there’, when I asked them to accompany me to the service. He
was there in so many other ways too. Whilst I will never understand why these
things happen, I know that when I’m willing to really look, I will find God
right there in the midst of whatever with me. And that knowledge and experience
humbles and breaks me every time.
Death has a way of forcing a re-evaluation of
that which is important in life and that which is not.
All it really seems to come down to
is trying to be as loving and kind as possible to the people around us,
including ourselves, especially when they or we are hurting. To attempt to spread something life enhancing
that recognises the value of each human being and the fragility with which our
lives hang. And to give of the gifts of our truest selves, without holding back.
No sooner
had I written my blog about Mother’s Day when an internal grief bomb exploded.
Not exactly surprising.
Initially it appeared in sparks of severe irritation at every little thing that I was doing. Whilst I did stop to ask myself why I was so angry, I moved away from the question before finding any answer.
Instead, I threw myself into preparing for a weekend away where I was attending a training event on loss!
I felt smug
and sensible when I got in to bed at 9.30pm in preparation for my 6.30am
departure. Whilst I was probably asleep by 10.30pm, I awoke at 4.30am and remained
awake. A fact that I felt decidedly unsmug about.
However, after
a straight forward journey, I had time for a Costa coffee and a read of the
newspaper before my course. What a treat.
The course
venue was situated by a beautiful harbour where the blue skied sunshine made me
temporarily wish I wasn’t committed to a day inside.
Anyway, the
course was fascinating.
Whilst death
and loss aren’t the most light hearted of subjects, I am a firm believer that the
more we are able to engage with the reality of death, loss and endings, the
more we are able to engage with the reality of living, love and new beginnings!
And when my time for death comes, I certainly want to know that I have given
and received as much of life’s opportunities as possible!
As I
listened to some of the speakers talk about how we humans can process and work
with our grief, I was reminded of my granddad. Having recently signed up to run
a half marathon to raise funds for the hospice my spiritual mother benefitted
from, I realised that my own granddad had also been in this hospice. On his last
day, he waited until his family were gathered around him before he gave himself
to death. In that respect it was a good death; he chose his moment, surrounded
by those who loved him.
But in
remembering this, I realised that although this happened over twenty years ago,
I have not grieved properly. It was as if I had totally blocked his death and his
life, despite him being such a significant and beloved part of my childhood.
As I
attempted to hold my sadness down to focus on the course, I became more and
more exhausted and irritable. It really is so exhausting suppressing emotion yet
equally exhausting to engage with them!
By the time I
left for my overnight seaside accommodation my eyes were stinging with fatigue.
Although I managed a pot of tea and a slice of carrot cake on the pier, I had to
go to bed and surrender to sleep straight after.
Whilst
Sunday dawned with a bright blue sky and beautiful sunshine, my own temperament
was quite different!
I loved sitting
in the sea facing cafes enjoying my breakfast and newspapers but I could not
stand the increasing presence of other people! I was holding in too much pain
which was threatening to slip out in the form of general horribleness!
Fortunately for
everyone in the vicinity, I managed to find a quiet place sheltered from the wind
but in the sun, from which to devour my newspapers, coffee and sea view. Heavenly.
But of course,
underneath my irritable horribleness was the raw pain of ungrieved, grief. And it
was only once I arrived back home that I could allow this grief to pour forth once
more. After which I felt decidedly lighter and less prone to snarling or spitting.
I remembered
that I needed to be kind to myself (and others!) when the grief comes and so I took
some time out of my day on Monday to simply be still in the sunshine of my garden.
I also let my
key people know that I was in a painful space.
And by Tuesday,
I felt more like a human being and less like a wounded animal and I could therefore
resume my full responsibilities again.
The grief does
of course continue.
But so does life.
All I get to
choose is whether I will be kind to myself when I am hurting. My attempts to do
so included a trip to a local garden centre where I enjoyed the feel of the sun
on my skin, the sound of birdsong and the sight of the flowers. I was even joined
by this cute little fella!
As I reflected
on the ever changing weather this week; glorious warm sunshine on Monday and cold
rain on Tuesday, I realised that this was in direct contrast to my ever changing
emotions of misery on Monday followed by a renewed calm on Tuesday.
Like the weather,
my emotions come and my emotions go and the more I accept the inevitability of this
and ease up on myself accordingly, the more quickly they pass and the better it
is for everyone involved!
As if to seal
my experience, I saw a rainbow outside my house on Tuesday evening, reminding me
that whilst the weather constantly changes as do my emotions, God remains my one
true constant throughout both internal and external changes.
This is a
day that can bring such joy and such sorrow.
As we
approach it, I am able to recognise the change in my grief for the special lady
who was very much a mother to me over an eight year period.
Whilst the first
anniversary of her death was only a few short months ago, I am aware that
something has shifted in my grief.
It was
during my time in New Zealand whilst having a day on my own at the beach that I
sensed her presence afresh.
I could see
her big blue eyes smiling mischievously at me and remember her enthusiasm as
she encouraged me with all that I do. I recalled how utterly thrilled she was
for me when I stepped out in new areas to trial things that I am passionate
about. I remembered how she would tell me with such excitement when she had
heard something linked to the work I do. I could feel the force of her belief
in me when she encouraged me to keep going and to keep trying new things.
In essence,
I could experience her mighty love for me afresh.
I was
reminded of the way she was with me; she saw me; good and bad, she gently manoeuvred
around me when I was spiky, she walked with me through the worst years of my
healing, loving me even when she didn’t understand, she bounced and she beamed when
she saw me step out in meaningful areas and overall, she simply saw me, when
others didn’t.
I thought
back to how she was just there. When I needed to talk or to pray, to rant or
rejoice, she was there at the end of the phone always ready to hear and to
share in what I had to say.
She was
there for me.
And she
loved me.
In spite of
myself.
She gave me
the gift of unconditional love.
What greater
gift is there?
And whilst
writing these words brings fresh tears to my eyes, the grief has changed. When I feel the deep sadness at her physical absence,
I no longer feel like I am in a well of grief that I cannot imagine ever
finding my way through or out.
Instead, now
when I cry, I see her beautiful smiling face and the love in her eyes and I
know that she is telling me not only that I am doing ok and I am going to be ok,
but also that I am going to continue finding my way to do all the things I
believe in.
It is as if
she is still here albeit in a different way as her love for me continues to
live on within me, encouraging me every step of the way and spurring me on to keep
stepping up and speaking out for all that I believe in.
I no longer
feel lost in the pain.
I feel loved
and supported by her through it and beyond.
In her last
days of lucidity, she looked me in the eyes and told me, ‘Jo, you are going to
do great things’.
Even in her
last days she was still encouraging and loving all of us around her. In the
face of her death, she continued to be as she was in her life; scattering her
seeds of love and of life.
What a
woman.
What a gift
to me.
Her belief
in me knew no bounds and though I would much rather she were still here in
person, I now sense her presence, her comfort, her enthusiasm, her laughter,
her playfulness, her kindness, her patience, her excitement, her belief in me
and most of all, her love for me, still living within me, still encouraging me
every step of the way.
Wow!
And, it wasn’t
that she wasn’t with me last year, it was just that I was in too much pain over
her physical death, to be able to access the internal wellspring of love that
she had fed in to me over the years.
But now,
whilst the tears still come, they also bring a smile about who she was and who
she continues to be, to me.
I loved her
and even more amazingly, she loved me!
A gift so
generous and so profound that now it is my turn to pass that gift on to as many
as I can in my lifetime. Whilst acknowledging that I will continue to mess up
along the way! But I hope I will continue to learn and to apply all that I can
about what it really is to love.
Is there
more precious a gift than that of a mother’s love?
Or more painful
a loss than absence of it?
This mother’s
day, whilst I still mourn her absence, I will also rejoice in her ongoing love,
presence and influence within my mind, heart, soul and life.
I will also
rejoice in a recent meeting with my own mother following a long period of
estrangement.
Mother’s day
evokes all manner of emotions for us all. And all of these are worthy of our
attention, compassion and love.
Be kind to
yourself this Mother’s Day, whatever it evokes for you.
And where
possible, celebrate those who have shown you a mother’s love, whether
biological or otherwise, whether still with us or having gone on ahead.
Because our, or at least my natural instinct, is to move away from that which hurts.
What I would like to say, especially in view of my profession, is that I’ve got this stuff nailed. But of course, this is real life and I am one of those real live, messy, imperfect humans! One that has to learn, learn and learn again, how to be with the inevitable. The ouch.
None of us like the ouch.
Yet to refuse it, is to allow it to cause a whole heap more ouch’s until we turn to face it.
I experience this again and again with the ouch of grief.
Every time a new wave knocks me to the ground, I just want to dust myself down and return to normal duty’s as if it didn’t and it doesn’t, hurt.
Like most of the human population, I don’t want to register the pain because I don’t like feeling pain and I do like not feeling pain!
So every time, I have to re-learn all over again, that the only way to live with the ouch that accompanies grief, is by acknowledging its presence and effect and responding with compassion rather than frustration.
Yet my first instinct is still to fight it. I want to ‘win’. By winning I mean, I want to be ok and not let the grief leave me feeling not ok.
But, it is only when I can own, accept and embrace my ouch inducing not ok, that I begin to become a little more ok!
It’s a paradox.
One that is eased when I am reminded that it is ok to acknowledge my grief. I can then relax and stop fighting it. I remember that this does not mean that I am failing, it is not a sign of weakness, it does not mean that I am wallowing, or that I will feel miserable for ever more. It simply means that the grief needs some care and attention.
I’ve had a few reminders of this recently.
I arrived at my house group the other week to discover that we were watching a Nooma DVD (short Rob Bell film on a life theme), called Matthew. None of us knew what it was about. But it turned out to be on death, grief and the importance of making time and space to allow WHATEVER thoughts and feelings need to come out. It wasn’t talking about just allowing the nice/positive/good/acceptable/Christian thoughts and feelings but ALL the feelings, especially the ugly and unwanted ones.
It was a timely reminder.
And it came only two short days after a colleague had reminded me of exactly the same thing about making time and space to allow grief. Not banishing it. Not distracting away from it. But actively inviting it to come and take up its rightful place within my being and my day.
Both of these served to remind me that I do not need to FEAR my grief or any of the feelings that accompany it.
What I do need is to keep practising over and over again what it is to recognise, allow, value, respect, accommodate, trust, welcome and tend to my grief.
As in every time it arises.
Because I have noticed that whenever I finally stop fighting and say to myself, ‘Ok, you feel miserable/angry/resentful/whatever and you are allowed to feel that, just be with it’, it begins to dissipate.
And when I remember to go easy on myself and change down a gear, life becomes so much easier to manage.
I’ve been reflecting on this recently whilst out on my bike. I’ve taken to cycling to work once a week. It allows me to incorporate a bit of physical activity with time out in the fresh air amongst what is otherwise a day spent sat on my backside, inside. I like it. The cycling that is.
Anyway, as I was huffing and puffing my way up a hill recently, repeatedly changing in to lower gears, it occurred to me that this is like life. As in, when things get difficult, or the pressure is on, or we have an unexpectedly high work load, or we are simply dealing with emotional stuff, we, read I, can sometimes expect myself to just keep travelling in exactly the same gear at exactly the same speed.
How ridiculous.
If I don’t even do this to myself on the bike, why do it to myself in life.
What I really need of course is to change down a gear, slow down, make allowance for the new situation and reduce my expectations accordingly. In other words, to partner with myself to be able to keep going but at a realistic pace, rather than setting myself up to fail by attempting to continue in the same gear and at the same pace.
Sigh.
No matter how much I think I know this stuff, I still have to learn afresh every time the new wave hits. Ugh! I wish I was a faster learner!
But, there is another side to facing death, grief and the accompanying ouch. For if we can face it front on, it can urge us to complete an ongoing reassessment of life. What is important and what is not. What gets squeezed out or constantly postponed and what am I going to do about it.
As a result, one of the steps I have taken is to book my return flight to New Zealand. The place where the family I lived with and the beauty and culture of the land was so significantly life changing and healing. It was here that I entered in to a relationship with the living God. Life has never been the same again. Thankfully.
But, it has been a whole decade now since I’ve managed to return. Afterall, NZ is a long way to go and it is expensive. Legitimate reasons right? But this year, when asked to go, I didn’t hesitate. No more delaying what is important.
None of us can guarantee how long our future will be or how much time lay ahead to see the places or people we love. And so, I booked my ticket. Not for next year or the year after or in another decades’ time. I don’t want another single year to pass without doing this so important thing.
Nothing will be the same of course. All will have changed in the past decade. The people, the place and of course me. But I need to go. And I want to go. So I am going.
A few months after booking said flight the tax man very kindly granted me a generous tax rebate to fund my trip. Result! The plus side of my reduced capacity to work and thus to earn this year!
Whilst discussing this NZ trip with my supervisor, who was able to own and express their envy (!), they shared with me how a friend of theirs who was rather wealthy, had always had a dream to go to a particular country. They put it off and put it off until the unspeakable happened. They got a terminal diagnosis and were in too poor health to go. Whilst this friend was looking head long in to the face of death with no choice to go back and do the things they had wished to do, they urged my supervisor not to make the same mistake.
Wise words.
Ones we would do well to heed whilst we still can.
It is all too easy to busy and distract ourselves from anything unpleasant for the entire duration of our lives only to arrive at the shores of death to realise that we never quite got around to doing what we really wanted.
I don’t want that.
No matter how short or long, how painful or how unpredictable this thing called life is, or how utterly awful the death of someone I love is, I still want to try and of course at times fail, to look both life and death square in the eye. I want not just to see the ugliness of pain, suffering and premature death but also to see the great beauty that life still offers.
I don’t want to miss what is possible because of what is not. And if I have to slow down again and again and again to allow more healing to happen to facilitate the longer-term goals and desires, then that is ok. (Sometimes!).
I don’t want to drift through life and in to death. Instead I choose to proactively engage, embrace and take steps towards that which is important. Even when this means slowing down AGAIN to allow for more healing.
At least I’m trying to.
What is it that YOU have delayed and postponed and not made the time or space to make happen in your life?
Grief never really goes away but sometimes it feels closer than others. And these past few weeks have been and continue to be one of those times when its presence is unavoidable. And perhaps that is it, I’ve been avoiding it, happily whiling away the summer immersed in the wonders of denial. I don’t know. But what I do know is it has hit me again with full force. And it hurts. A lot.
First off it got triggered through a seemingly innocent Pixar film. ‘Brave’, in case you were wondering. So much rich material around the mother/daughter relationship, much of which reminded me of the lessons and gifts that Margaret gave me in her mothering of me. By the end of the film, I was sobbing. A good healthy release I thought.
But it continued to simmer beneath the surface for a few weeks. And then an unexpected encounter with the sister who looks so like Margaret, left me totally floored. KO’d they call it in Boxing terms. And it was only the count down on the alarm and the call of my responsibility’s that dragged me back up to face it all again.
I just wasn’t prepared to be knocked clean out by the weight of the grief again. Not that I’m sure we can ever really be prepared. And if we could, perhaps we would simply duck out of its way.
But when these grief phases hit me, those individuals who have been there and just get it, become TOTALLY invaluable. Because grief is painful and lonely enough without being surrounded by people who don’t get it. So when you find those who do, talk to them!
Because grief isn’t something we simply ‘deal with’ or ‘get shot of’.
Grief is something that comes to us and we have to walk it through, feeling it, until it dissipates again. Not that it ever goes away entirely. But it does move out of the foreground at times. At least, that is my experience.
And herein lay one of the difficulties in understanding mental and emotional health.
We live in an age of the instant. Most things can be accessed in an instant.
We want something.
We get it.
Now.
No waiting.
Whether it’s the latest box set online, a car on credit or any other stuff.
No one wants to wait for anything anymore.
We want stuff. And we want it now. Even if we have to work so many hours that we pay with the quality of our life/health.
But when it comes to our health, we can’t have things in an instant. We have to wait. We can’t simply buy our health to be as we want it to be. We have to engage with the process of healing. Even if you can afford to skip some queues by going private. And this process takes time and it brings frustration and a whole bunch of other usually unwanted feelings.
It’s how it is.
There is no other way.
Sure, we can get meds to take away this or take away that but even they come at a cost of side effects.
Health is one of the few areas where no matter how much money we have or how hard we pray, we still have to walk the path of healing and growth. (And ultimately, the path of deterioration in to death!)
There is no short cut for healing.
No quick fix.
No miracle pill.
Or even prayer.
It’s just hard.
And any denial or glossing over of that fact, makes it harder.
Unfortunately, our culture just wants to pay or pray to get rid of anything it doesn’t want to feel. And this applies as much to a broken limb as to a broken heart.
We want it better and we want it better now. And we’re willing to pay.
But there are no instant magical cures.
The human body and soul can break. And when they do, they need time and care to heal. No amount of money can pay to fast track this.
We don’t like this. We want the meds to spare us or God to heal us in an instant. And when these don’t happen, we often just don’t know what to do with ourselves and our frustrations, disappointments, resentments and plain sorrows.
We haven’t learned. We want health given to us on a plate. We don’t want to engage with a process that can evoke more pain, to reach the place of healing.
We don’t like it.
And I am no exception.
I don’t like feeling full of sorrow. I don’t like the emotional fatigue that accompanies it. I don’t like the loss of energy. And I don’t like not knowing how long it will last.
I just don’t like it. In fact, I totally ****** hate it. (And of the course the anger part of grief is SO socially unacceptable!). I Understand it. But that doesn’t afford me a fast pass through it.
However, I am learning not to waste my currently diminished energy reserves on fighting the process. Some of the time!
If I feel crap, I cut myself some slack. Mostly! I let myself off the hook a bit. I pull back. I say no. I take any self imposed pressure off. I tend to myself in the way that I need. Just as I might encourage another to do.
Because sometimes, this business of being a human can really hurt.
And what none of us need when we’re hurting is to put ourselves under unnecessary pressure. Sure, life doesn’t stop for any of us. But we can look at our loads realistically and decide what can wait.
We can in short, look after ourselves with compassion and understanding rather than impatience and condemnation.
I’ve experienced a lot of sorrow these past weeks and I continue to do so. I’ve also heard about a lot from others. From friends. From neighbours; a suicide at the train station. And from a film, A Star is Born. Beautiful but devastating and topical.
Death.
Grief.
Loss.
Endings.
Disappointments.
Life.
Sometimes it just hurts.
Pretending this is not so is more damaging than finding the courage to face it.
We all love instant gratification.
But we seldom grow through it. Anything worthwhile having, especially our health, takes time. Time to nurture and care for and time to heal when it gets damaged, hurt or broken in some way.
We don’t get to choose how long the process will take. We get to choose only how we will treat ourselves whilst going through it.
Patience, compassion and a capacity to recognise the presence of God, are absolutely key.
No sooner had I written about the joys of my seemingly endless summer of blackberry picking, bike rides, stream paddling and all things Enid Blyton, when the weather abruptly switched in to what felt decidedly like Winter. At least in comparison. A drop from 31C to 16C.
What a shock to the system!
Many welcomed this.
Not me!
But how quickly change can come.
I reflected upon this earlier in the week as I walked through the fields, accompanied by the constantly changing sky of sunshine and clouds (hoping that it would not rain before I got home).
As I did so I had to acknowledge that both sunshine and rain are needed.
Whilst I love the sun, the summer and all things light and fun, this is of course, not the whole deal. Nor can it be. As much as I have loved this summer of sunshine, it has not been good for all.
In fact, it’s even been fatal for some of our most vulnerable; elderly or infirm.
And, having regularly walked through the farmer’s fields and thus witnessed the sun scorched crops, I’ve felt prompted to pray God’s provision upon them. (I’ve learned over the years that there are no limits to the ways in which God can make provision for us when the unexpected happens). Of course, there will also be a knock-on effect upon pricing for us, the crop consumer.
So, whilst the general consensus is that most of us tend to feel better when the sun is shining (around the mid twenties not thirties), the fact remains that our land cannot survive on sunshine alone. It needs rain too.
Both are needed. Neither work in isolation of the other. They work in unison. Ask a farmer.
Or look at the ‘green spaces’ around. They cease to be green. More of a sun scorched yellow.
Clearly, sunshine alone does not allow the land to thrive.
Even this beauty cannot survive let alone thrive on sunshine alone.
As I looked at the fields that day beneath the rapidly changing sky, I couldn’t help but reflect on the parallels with life.
We all love the good sunny times where everything goes to plan and we feel like life is smiling upon us. Yet things can change in an instant when unexpected difficulties appear in the form of unforeseeable bills, problems, tragedy’s or losses of all shapes and sizes.
Nobody likes this fact.
We can feel hard done by when hit by the unfairness of life.
And of course, the truth is that life is unfair.
For all.
But what is equally true if we care to really think about it, is that life also deals out unfairness the other way around.
What I mean is, that life doesn’t simply spit out misery at seemingly random, always unwanted, moments. Because if we are really honest, it also at times gives us unexpected (and unearned) good fortune. It is just that somehow, we seem to be better at developing amnesia about this kind of unfairness! Myself included. It’s called being human for us humans are way better at remembering what hurts, over what helps or heals!
Life brings joy and life brings pain.
To all.
Without exception.
Or explanation.
It may look different for each of us but it is true for all. Whilst it is easy to fall in to the trap of comparing ourselves to others, it certainly isn’t helpful. We seldom get the full story of the lives of others. Especially if using Facebook as a source of evidence!
I don’t pretend to know why joy and sorrow visit us all. I know only that they do.
Like I equally know that God is my only constant. The very same God who allows me to receive good things that I don’t deserve that have come through no efforts of my own, not only allows these good things to be taken away but also allows me to receive bad things that I equally do not deserve and have not contributed to receiving.
The very same God.
A God who tells me in his word that I will have trouble in this world but a God who also tells me that Jesus has overcome all that life threw at Him. And God promises that Him, Jesus and the Holy spirit will help me to overcome all that life throws at me.
Overcome not meaning avoid, deny, pretend, ignore or sweep under the carpet, but actually overcome. Which in my thinking, not only means to assist me to continue being all that I am capable of being and contributing all that I can to this world, in spite of my own regular deliveries of crap parcels. As well as aided by the unexpected bonuses. But also, to continue living my life with a heart that is open to all that arises.
This God offer of assistance is lifelong.
For all seasons of life.
The joy and the pain.
The sunshine and the rain.
In the words of the Maze song! If you don’t know it, check out the lyrics!
I am reminded of these truths not merely through the fields and the sky but also through my own life experience.
For, just as I have loved the sun drenched days of these past two months, I have also enjoyed a lightness of heart, even more appreciated and enjoyed following the early months of this year where I felt drenched in the gravity of grief.
Yet in these past few weeks, the sadness has begun to arise again. I sense it around the edges of my soul, creeping closer and closer. Only this time I refuse to deny it. I know it is there and I’ve been expecting it. I can acknowledge, name and allow it to come forth and do its work of healing. In the main!
There is of course part of me that doesn’t want this sadness to come again. I have so enjoyed these few months of sunshine and joy, I don’t want more pain or rain.
Yet experience repeatedly reminds me that when I fail to grant my sadness the same respect and attention that I freely give my joy, it begins to block my internal well spring of joy, taking with it my 3D full colour experience of living.
And I don’t want that.
So this week I gave myself some needed space to allow my sadness to come forth.
Crying is so healing. And so precious to our God and Father that he welcomes and collects our tears. Wow!
Afterwards I felt a fresh wave of joy as I wandered freely through the fields. The joy of feeling the sun and the breeze on my face, the space of the open countryside and the time to follow a path that I hadn’t explored before. I felt truly alive and flooded with gratitude.
That’s the thing about grief and sadness and whatever life throws that wounds our hearts. As we allow ourselves to experience and acknowledge our losses and our pain, a new awareness and gratitude arises in response to the simple gifts that life offers even in the midst of the hardest of moments.
A gratitude that fails to come forth when we fail to acknowledge the depths of our sorrows and pain. A gratitude that gets lost and blocked behind a wall of cynicism and sarcasm. Sure signs that we have closed and hardened out hearts in an attempt to block the pain. Not realising that in doing so we also block the joy awaiting to come forth following it.
Sadness and sorrow always feel more painful following periods of contentment and joy for it can be all too easy to forget that the sun will shine again.
Change can come in an instant.
For joy or for pain.
Wanted or unwanted.
And we can adjust.
If only we will acknowledge the need to.
Imagine if we denied the change in temperature and continued to wear clothes fit for a sunny 30 something day when it was raining and cold. We don’t do this. We know that we require protection from hot sunshine just as we do from the rain.
Yet when it comes to matters of the heart and soul, how often do we refuse to prepare or to care for ourselves in the face of the actual as opposed to the wanted season and conditions.
We must learn to work with where our hearts are. Not where we wish them to be.
In doing so, the season of sorrow will pass with more ease.
I regularly hear people tell me that they ‘should’ feel this, that and the other as opposed to what they do feel. And it is often the ideas about what we think we should or should not feel that causes further and unnecessary difficulty.
We feel what we feel.
It is not about attempting to force ourselves not to feel what we feel, whether by attempts to intellectualise, pray or even brute force it away.
What is important, is what we do with what we feel.
This does not mean living by feelings alone without reference to the capacity to think about what is felt or to discern spiritually what is happening or what response is required.
But it does mean we need to cultivate the capacity for compassion.
We still live in what is very much a culture of dismissing any sign of sorrow or pain as ‘wallowing’ or ‘weakness’, despite the truth to the contrary.
We would do well to give our sorrow and pain at least as much attention as our joy and happiness.
The two are a package deal.
We cannot separate them.
Without losing something of the ability to feel alive.
The reality is that life is made up of joy and of sorrow.
We can no more stop this than we can control the sunshine or the rain.
But what we do get to choose is how we respond to these by what we do with them.
Just as we take care of ourselves by preparing for sunshine or rain, we can also take of ourselves by preparing and caring for the varying seasons of our souls.
We need both.
Joy and pain.
It is my pain that increases my capacity for joy and appreciation. At least when I can confront it with honesty.
And it is the joy of loving, that can turn in to the pain of losing.
But, I certainly don’t imagine that God sits at his drawing board planning personalised crap parcels for us all, just to develop a bit more gratitude within us. Whilst I’m sure there is much that God does for each of us that we are not even aware of much less thankful to Him for, He is not in my experience a punitive God. He allows hard stuff and I don’t know why, but I do believe there are reasons that are beyond our vision and comprehension and that God remains the key to finding our way through.
We can fight these hard facts of life forever more, or we can learn to work with what comes. Which doesn’t mean we can’t have a few tantrums along the way or at times feel utterly defeated! We just need to engage with these honestly and to seek the help of God and each other, not to remain in these modes!
Because, just as too much sunshine hardens the ground and the rain softens it, so too can the tragedies of life either harden or soften our hearts depending upon our willingness to fully engage with them.
Of course we’d rather this was not so and we‘d rather the pain stayed away.
At least I know I would.
But the reality is that we cannot stop the sunshine or the rain, the joy or the pain.
Yet we can prepare and practice taking appropriate care of ourselves in the face of every season, of weather or soul.
Grief isn’t a nice, tidy, or by any means short process that comes with any kind of manual or end date.
Nor is it something we can control.
It is unique and unpredictable.
But, over time we can learn to recognise and surrender to it rather than resist and prolong it. Not that it ever ends but more that the loss becomes integrated and the absence adjusted to, even when it still hurts.
Ultimately we have to learn to trust the grieving process.
Because when that fresh wave of grief hits, it hits.
You know about it.
There can be no denial of its arrival.
At least not for long.
In fact, we’d do well to notice it coming.
I saw mine on the horizon. Or rather I felt it. The tears that came at inappropriate moments. The stuffing them back down with sugar or salt laden rubbish, the extended and more frequent need for an afternoon nap, the struggle to smile in the presence of so much stifled sadness.
The signs were all there.
I simply refused to read them.
It took a meeting with my best friend and fellow psychotherapist to point out the unwanted obvious.
This was another wave of grief.
I’d come out of the fog of the first few months and people had commented on how much better I looked. I felt better too.
So when the grief began to hit again, I tried to resist it by carrying on as ‘normal’. I liked feeling ‘better’. And I didn’t want to feel sad again. I’ve already had too much sadness for one lifetime.
I resisted, denied, refused and fought this new wave of grief.
I didn’t want it to take me over.
I wasn’t trusting it to do its work of transformation or to deliver me to where I need to be.
All this despite knowing that something as important as the process of grief cannot be ignored. At least not for any real length of time before your body starts protesting via the language of illness. For some, even hospitalisation.
But, like most humans, I also like to buy in to all those palatable ideas about how having the right thoughts, beliefs, or pills, means we don’t have to be ‘so weak’ (read human) as to experience unwanted feelings. I get it. I want this to be true as much as the next person. And if swallowing these ideas came without the consequences it would certainly be a lot easier and less painful.
And so I allowed myself to indulge in a little delusion, despite my training, despite my knowledge, despite the reality that stifled sadness (or any other unwanted emotion) is a great stealer of smiles and obstructer of the internal well of joy.
I know this stuff but like most humans I still sometimes opt for the comfort of denial. No matter how shallow or short lived.
As a friend of mine says, denial is a very long river.
And for a while, I just wanted to swim in it. I didn’t want to get out to face much less engage with the reality that ‘the only cure for grief, is grieving’. (I nicked that expression off some one else but can’t remember who – possibly Kubler Ross).
But anyway …
Grief cannot be fast tracked, thought or prayed away.
Grief has to be grieved.
No quick fix.
No short cut.
No way out, over or above.
Just the long and at times lonely, walk through.
Sometimes it hits so hard, we come to a standstill. One which reminds us afresh of the lost one. Of the pain of having loved that person and no longer having them here in our midst in the way that we used to.
It hurts.
All I can do is ride it out.
And cut myself some slack. Re-check my schedule, re-assess what is really necessary right now and what can wait. Reduce my expectations. Listen to my body and respect its messages.
Ultimately, I can practice a little extra self-care. Experiment with when to push and when to let up. Trial and error. Learning along the way. Making adjustments where necessary.
After all, what really is the rush for anything? Do I have anything if I don’t have my health, if I refuse to stop and allow myself to heal?
Nothing is more important than health.
So I’m prioritising mine right now.
Not ministry, not the housework and not my finances. Because actually, without my health, what use are any of these?
I’m also letting my people know that I’m struggling. That I need a little extra encouragement right now. Because when my world becomes dark with grief, it’s the light of my people that breaks through and reminds me to keep trusting until my own light can shine again.
The finger of God
As I reflect upon my grieving process, I am reminded of how grieving has worked in my life previously, having experienced rather a lot of it. Not always related to death but always to loss.
What I recall is that it goes in cycles. I feel consumed by the grief for a period, then I experience a respite which feels wonderful in comparison, then another round of grief hits, feeling worse than the last because it’s now in contrast to feeling good and so the cycles repeat. Except that each time, the period of grieving becomes less severe and the period of respite becomes longer until the two eventually amalgamate in to a new norm.
It’s a process. One that I’m well versed in. So I know I can trust it to do its work of healing and transformation.
Yet I still need reminding when I’m in its midst for I can lose sight of the purpose of the pain.
This is the pain of healing.
Just like when a physical part of the body is healing and growing in strength again. It too can bring pain as part of the process.
I refuse to bypass this process.
I will not settle for Society’s short sighted offer of a superficial, intellect only healing. Tempting as it may be. I will not force my body to communicate through illness. When it starts warning me through the coldsore, sore throat, headache, nauseau or the really big warning sign, lack of appetite, I stop. I acknowledge my body’s message and respond accordingly.
Which means giving myself permission to do nothing. To simply be. To listen to the birds, to walk amongst God’s beautiful creation, to admire the buds of new life, to watch the sun’s rays bounce off the stillness of the river. I take these moments to just be still and allow myself to reconnect to the joy and privilege of simply being alive. Even when it hurts.
Because at the end of the day, I want a heart level healing. Or more realistically, a healthy heart level adjustment to the absence of the one who made such a difference to my world and my life.
Gosh I miss her.
Her smile, her expressions, her sense of fun and mischief, her laughter, her seeing, getting and reaching me with her love.
A mother’s love.
I want her back.
Now.
I don’t want to accept that she’s not coming back.
And I don’t want to wait until I get to Heaven to see her again.
Yet that’s the price I signed up to pay when I allowed her in to my heart; to mother me, to be a friend, a confidante, an encourager, a supporter, a stabiliser, a security provider, a champion of my dreams, a trusted one to share the day to day with, one to laugh with, cry with, share meals and pray with.
I signed up for this whether I consciously chose to or not. I signed up for the reality that when I allow myself to love someone, I must also accept that I may lose them.
It’s a non-negotiable part of the deal.
The possibility of losing love is part of the package of enjoying the love in the first place.
It’s just how it is. Sometimes we lose the people we love.
And the subsequent loss brings a painful grieving process with it.
It’s the price we pay for loving.
And I wouldn’t change it.
So instead of forcing my sadness deep within assisted by an onslaught of crisps and cake, I’m making a renewed commitment to myself to make time to grieve. Time to allow my tears to come forth, my sadness to be released. Secure in the knowledge that I will come through this with my heart still intact. I refuse to separate or cut off from my sadness or reduce myself to being half hearted. I will not settle for that.
I am choosing to remain full hearted. Even when it hurts to do so. Because this is the only way that I can remain fully connected and fully alive. And for however long I am gifted with the opportunity to live, I want to remain fully connected, fully feeling and fully living. Even now. Because I know that I will come through. I’ll be different as a result but I’ll still be fully alive.
And this business of staying fully alive is absolutely vital to me. Because I don’t believe for a nano second that my Jesus endured what he did on that cross for me to lamely settle for some little half hearted life where I’m shut off from everything that I don’t want to feel. Where in effect, I shut down the centre of who I am, the very lifeblood of my existence; my heart and soul. I just won’t do that.
And subsequently, I am trusting my Jesus to walk me through this. Every step of it. However long it takes. Whether I’m skipping, dancing or dragging myself. Because I believe that Jesus will help me to walk through my grief without relinquishing my ability to remain connected or whole. Or rather as whole as it is possible to be whilst this side of heaven.
It’s been a big wave. And it’s not done yet. But as I allow myself to engage more fully with my pain, I notice my joy for life, begin to filter back through. And somehow it’s sharper, clearer, more 3D, richer and fuller.
Grief hurts … but grief also heals.
It’s a paradox.
But one that it’s worthwhile engaging with.
At least if one wishes to continue living whilst living…
